


Sandal: Origins

by InvisibleGoats



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Based on my headcanons, Short Chapters, oh look I finally finished it, sandal's origin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-08-18 21:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8176288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InvisibleGoats/pseuds/InvisibleGoats
Summary: A selection of flash fiction stories about the lives of Sandal and Bodahn Feddic before they got to Lothering





	1. Finding Sandal

**Author's Note:**

> I'll try to have the next chapter done in the next few days. Hope you enjoy!

Bodahn turned at the noise. Of course in his many ventures into the Deep Roads he heard all sorts of sounds, but this was seemed almost…human? Wait, was it a human?  
He hoisted his overstuffed pack onto his shoulder and ran through the old thaig in the direction of the sound, tripping over darkspawn corpses. Why were there so many fresh corpses. Oh Ancestors have mercy what was he getting himself into.

He turned a corner and found himself face to face with…

A toddler.

The child had clearly never seen the sun. He was so pale you could almost mistake him for a ghoul, but he was definitely a dwarf, at least mostly. There was something about his face that wasn’t quite right, but you can’t fault a boy for his face, especially not stuck down here. How did he even survive?

There was a groaning sound from one of the bodies behind the child, and for the first time Bodahn noticed that this one wasn’t the emissary he had taken it for. Robed, yes, but with a cowl that marked it as belonging to a mage. He picked his way over to her and turned her over so he could see her face. When he saw it, however, he quickly dropped her again and stepped back, horrified.

“Dwarf! Please…help me.” She pleaded, her face covered in black, dead patched, her eyes sunken into her face like a corpse. She was bleeding heavily. “My son...Sandal...he's like me...keep him safe..."


	2. Enchantment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandal's abilities begin to manifest

Back on the surface, Bodhan set up his stall outside of Redcliffe chantry. He handed the boy a couple of cheap items to distract him so he could work.

Bodhan asked himself why he hadn’t left Sandal back in Orzammar. He was a dwarf after all, at least outwardly. He wondered whether he had been conceived at a Calling ceremony. His father might even have been in the Legion. It did get pretty lonely in the Deep Roads. But when he looked down at the little boy with his unnaturally large eyes and felt something he had no words for.

This child was his responsibility now. And he would look after him.

A sudden flash behind him caught his attention, and he spun around to see the lad holding a rune. He wondered where he had got it from. There had been some blank rune stones on the table but…no it couldn’t be.

The lad was a dwarf, at least mostly, how could he make runes without lyrium?

He knelt down next to Sandal, so that their eyes met. “Sandal, do you know what you just did?”

“…”

He should have known better than to ask. The boy never spoke if he didn’t need to.

Bodhan took the rune from him, and presented him with a dagger. He pressed the two together, hoping to explain in that way the process that he had never attempted himself.

“Enchantment. You can enchant things boy!” He felt oddly proud. He hadn’t taught him, hadn’t known him a week ago, but he was proud of his achievement.

“My son.” He tried the word on for size. “My son the enchanter.”

As soon as he said it, the rune disappeared and the dagger started to glow. The blade was hot to the touch.

“No lyrium…” He wondered.

“Enchantment!”


	3. Running

Bodhan and Sandal had set up shop in a new town. Again. It was getting harder to hide what Sandal was. The boy seemed to have no self-preservation instincts; he pet stray dogs, talked to strangers, and constantly shouted about enchantment.

It might have been ok had the town not been constantly filling up with people for weeks now. Some trouble down south, apparently, not that it was ever likely to get as far as Lothering. He had set up his stall outside the chantry as usual, and performing his usual routine of patter and bartering, sometimes simultaneously, keeping a close eye on the boy.

The boy. He was almost a man by now, though you wouldn't know it from speaking to him. Oh he could communicate, in his way, but he didn't quite have the eloquence Bodhan had hoped his son would gain. Still, he was a good worker and a gentle soul.

As the afternoon was becoming the evening, a large, armoured woman approched from the south.

"Alright dwarf, where is he?"

"Who would that be," he looked the woman up and down, taking note of the heraldry on her shield, "Ser Templar."

He tried to keep a straight face as he watched her go through the same thoughts as the others had. How to accuse a dwarf of apostasy.

"Your son. The enchanter who doesn't need lyrium."

"Enchantment!"

Sandal ran up from where he had been playing in the river, but stopped dead-still when he spotted the templar.

"Templar!"

"Yes, you know why I'm here, don't you little man. Don't play dumb with me dwarf. With the King dead and rumours of blight, the last thing anyone wants is apostates running around loose."

One of the other merchants looked up in surprise. How could a dwarf be a mage?

Sandal bolted, closely followed by the templar. Bodhan, to the shock of the onlookers, continued to calmly pack up before he followed them at a comfortable pace. The templar seemed to have left. Funny how that always happened.

He gave Sandal a hug, but pushed him away quickly as he saw the darkspawn approach. Maybe it wasn't just the south that was in trouble. He'd fought them before, of course, but he was younger then, fitter and better armed.

Just at that moment, there appeared a group of four warriors, who wiped out the darkspawn in seconds. Amazing!

"Mighty timely arrival there my friend. I'm much obliged."


End file.
